“Northanger Abbey” was written in 1798, revised for the press in 1803, and sold in the same year for L10 to a Bath bookseller, who held it in such light esteem that, after allowing it to remain for many years on his shelves, he was content to sell it back to the novelist’s brother, Henry Austen, for the exact sum which he had paid for it at the beginning, not knowing that the writer was already the author of four popular novels.  This story—­which is, of course, a skit on the “terror” novel of Mrs. Radcliffe’s school—­was not published till after its author’s death, when, in 1818, it was bound up with her last book, “Persuasion.”

I.—­A Heroine in the Making

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy could have supposed her born to be a heroine.  Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.  Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard, and he had never been handsome.  He had a considerable independence, besides two good livings, and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters.  Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution.  She had three sons before Catherine was born; and, instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on—­lived to have six children more—­to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself.  Catherine, for many years of her life, was as plain as any member of her family.  She had a thin, awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark, lank hair, and strong features.  So much for her person; and not less propitious for heroism seemed her mind.  She was fond of all boys’ sports, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy—­nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rosebush.  Indeed, she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief—­at least, so it was conjectured from her habit of always preferring those which she was strictly forbidden to take.

Such were her propensities; her abilities were quite as extraordinary.  She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught, and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid.  Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinet; so at eight years old she began.  She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off.  The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine’s life.  Her taste for drawing was not superior; though, whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother, or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another.  Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother.  Her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could.